One third of adults can't delete device data

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has warned that many adults don't know how to wipe their old devices, and a worrying number of young people just don't care.

Clearing personal data off an old device is an important step before ditching it or handing it on to another user. However, almost three in ten (29 percent) of adults don't know how to remove the information, according to a survey of 2,170 members of the UK public.

Seventy-one percent agreed that wiping a device was important, but almost a quarter (24 percent) reckoned it was too arduous. This means that the drawer of dusty devices is set to swell – three-quarters of respondents reported hanging on to at least one old device, and a fifth did so because they were worried about their personal information.

It's an age thing, but perhaps not in the way Reg readers might expect. After all, the young tend to be a bit more tech-savvy, right?

Though this might be true when it comes to figuring out the new remote control, it is less so when seeing the need to deal with data on old devices. More than one in five (21 percent) of young people in the survey didn't think it was important to wipe personal data, while 23 percent said they didn't care about what might happen to that data.

Fourteen percent of people aged 18-34 said they wouldn't bother wiping their devices at all, compared to just 4 percent of people over 55. On the plus side, the majority (84 percent) of respondents said they would ensure data was erased before disposing of a device.

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Alternatively, some might not worry about it and stick it in that special drawer alongside all the cables that might be needed one day.

The survey also found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of UK adults were planning to treat themselves to a new device over the festive season, indicating that some free data wiping support may be called upon this Chrimbo among Reg readers in households up and down the country.

Suzanne Gordon, ICO Director of Public Advice and Data Protection Complaints, said: "Many of us will be looking to replace our phones and other devices over the Christmas period, so it's great to see that so many people recognize the importance of safely wiping your personal information. With the New Year being an ideal time to declutter, there's no reason to leave your old devices to gather dust in a drawer.

"Erasing your personal information from an old device doesn't need to be difficult, and it means that your data can't be accessed by anybody else, either by mistake or for malicious purposes such as fraud. For example, a factory reset via the settings can adequately erase your personal information from most mobile phones." ®